Green light from the Eurochamber for the resolution, presented one year after the start of the war in Ukraine, which requests that Kiev be supplied with “military aid for as long as necessary”. The text invites the Commission to “seriously consider the supply of fighter planes, helicopters, missile systems and an increase
of ammunition. The green light came with 444 votes in favour, 26 no and 37 abstentions. The resolution calls for using Russian assets frozen by the EU to rebuild
Ukraine, tighten sanctions against Moscow and its allies and start accession talks with Kiev this year.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen has arrived in Kiev where he will see President Volodomyr Zelensky. It is the first time that an Israeli official has arrived in Ukraine since the Russian invasion of the country. Cohen – according to a spokesman – will announce the return of the Israeli embassy to Ukraine for ongoing activities in Kiev. Cohen, according to the Foreign Ministry, should also see his counterpart Dmytro Kuleba. In addition to Kiev, Cohen will also go to Bucha and Babi Yar.
“I arrived today for the first visit of an Israeli minister to Kiev since the outbreak of fighting. Over the past year – said Cohen – Israel has sided with the
people of Ukraine and part of Ukraine. Today we will fly the Israeli flag at the Israeli embassy in Kyiv, which will return to continuous activities in order to strengthen relations between the countries.”
The Ukrainian military shot down 16 Russian missiles last night during the 15th large-scale attack of the Moscow forces, which also hit critical infrastructure in various regions of the country: the Ukrainian Air Force announced it, according to which Russian forces have launched over 30 missiles. This was reported by the Kyiv Independent.
Russia hit targets last night in the north and west of the country, as well as in the Dnipropetrovsk and Kirovohrad regions, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of cabinet, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram. “Another rocket attack by the Russians. They launched missiles and UAVs at night. Unfortunately, there are attacks in the north and west of Ukraine, as well as in the Dnipropetrovsk and Kirovohrad regions,” he wrote the senior official.
Yermak added that Russian forces have changed tactics, using mock targets for pre-attack surveillance operations and to confuse Kiev’s air defenses. “However – he stressed – the air defense units shot down most of the enemy’s missiles and UAVs”. As previously reported, the Russians have struck critical infrastructure in the Lviv region, local authorities said on Telegram.
The Air Force specified that eight Kalibr cruise missiles were launched from a frigate in the Black Sea, 12 X-101/X-555 cruise missiles were launched from two Tu-95 strategic bombers from the Caspian Sea and 12 missiles from X-22 cruisers were launched by six Tu-22 long-range bombers from the Russian border of the Kursk region. In addition, two X-59 guided missiles were fired from two Su-35 tactical aircraft from the occupied area of Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia region.
A new air alert it therefore affected the whole of Ukraine overnight, with explosions felt in Kremenchuk in Poltava oblast, in central Ukraine, while the governor of Lviv oblast, Maksym Kozytskyi, urged residents to stay in shelters and reported that Russian forces hit ‘critical infrastructure’. In Pokrovsk, in the Ukrainian oblast of Donetsk, there are three dead and 11 wounded following yesterday’s missile attack. One person was killed and seven others were injured in Pavlograd, Dnipropetrovsk region.
According to the founder of the organization of Russian Wagner mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Moscow’s failure to advance into Donetsk is caused by Russia’s monstrous military bureaucracy. In battle, “Russia’s slow progress is due to monstrous military bureaucracy: Bakhmut, the epicenter of fighting in eastern Ukraine, will not be conquered before March or April,” Prigozhin said in a Telegram video. And he added that progress would depend on sending “reserves from the adversary”, criticizing Russia for failing to capture the city by the end of 2022.
Belarus will join the Russian offensive in Ukraine “only” if it is attackedBelarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
NATO accelerates on ammunition, Lavrov threatens – Russia’s new massive offensive against Ukraine, one year after the ground invasion, is in a very advanced stage of preparation, if not “already
begun”: movements on the border of troops and vehicles – including planes – have not gone unnoticed, as have the nuclear ships in the Baltic and 4 Russian fighter jets that skimmed over Alaska on Monday. The United States and Europe therefore intend to speed up the delivery of weapons to Kiev that would allow it to defend itself and win on the battlefield. The only way – according to the EU High Representative Josep Borrell – to arrive at a negotiation, and therefore peace. While less and less veiled threats to the West continue to arrive from Moscow , awaiting the speech that Vladimir Putin will give in front of the Russian Parliament on February 21st.
Russia, on the other hand, is reportedly suffering heavy losses during its continued assault on the city of Bakhmut, according to Kiev authorities, quoted by Ukrainian media. Private mercenary group Wager and other Russian-backed militant groups active in eastern Ukraine are reportedly losing up to 80 percent of some of their assault units, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said on Telegram.
For the allies, however, it is not yet the time to supply the jets requested by the Ukrainians to protect their skies where today even six alleged spy balloons over the capital were intercepted and partially shot down. For now, Swedish premier Ulf Kristersson, EU president on duty visiting Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev, has proposed the creation of a coalition that decides on fighter planes. But meanwhile NATO has decided to urgently increase the production of ammunition, artillery and anti-aircraft, which after 12 months of war are starting to run short even among the allies.
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced, at the end of the Alliance’s Council of Defense Ministers, that in addition to the USA and France, Germany, Norway and other member countries have also signed contracts with companies in the sector to increase production: “The existing production lines are being strengthened as well as investing in new factories”. “We are totally focused on providing capabilities and not just means”, then underlined the head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, saying he is convinced that “the Ukrainians will have a good chance of making a significant difference on the battlefield and establishing the initiative. And be able to leverage this initiative in the future”.
A future that could be imminent: “The war will be decided this spring and this summer”, predicted Borrell, reiterating the need to “help Ukraine win”. An activism that is obviously not appreciated in Moscow. In Ukraine, the West is reaching “the point of no return” by trying to surround Russia and turn it into a “rogue state”, thundered Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the Duma, determined to “end the Western monopoly” and build in its place “a global system which prevents the pursuit of selfish interests and which is based instead on a just and universal balance, as foreseen by the Charter of the United Nations”.
Meanwhile, Russia has requested a meeting of the UN Security Council on the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline last September which, according to an investigation by the
Seymour Hersh reporter would have been caused by the US with the help of Norway. “It was a terrorist act” by the USA against Russia and against Germany, to ensure that “Berlin no longer has a role”.
Even Vladimir Putin’s heirloom, Dmitry Medvedev, has not missed an opportunity to attack Europe via Telegram, in the person of Commission President Urusla von der Leyen (“a gynecologist who does not understand economics”) and Borrell himself, guilty of “call for a victorious end to the war”. “The end of Ukraine, of course!” replied the former Russian president. Words that make it difficult to hypothesize that he could open a glimmer of dialogue with this Russian leadership: in the post-war period, Borrell cut short, “we will probably need new leaders in Russia, who may perhaps help reconciliation”.
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